All Things Star Wars Thread (Spoilers)

greyhammer90

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Every poster in this thread



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GATTACA!

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I stopped reading here because I was clearly referring to all the other ships that meekly died while not trying anything. If you can't even be bothered to read what I wrote, I'm not going to keep wasting my time.

K
 

ulukinatme

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I watched Last Jedi again last night. I liked it alright the first time I saw it, although I definitely took issue with a few things. Watching it a second time? Man, it's boring. Aside from the Rey/Kylo beat down of the Imperial Guards, and the Luke fight at the end...meh. It still feels like the slowest, most boring space chase (12+ hours real time per the plot!) ever, but rewatching it you realize how little there is going on and how dull much of it is.

I didn't see the liberal/feminist overtones the first time, but I'm seeing it now. For much of the movie the strong, female characters put the men in their place and the men are made to look like bumbling fools or crooked assholes. There are no strong, good natured male leads in this story:

Poe disobeys Leia and attacks the Dreadnaught. Poe and the Resistance take the ship down, but suffer catastrophic casualties in the process.
Poe gets demoted for his poor judgement.
Ackbar dies like a bitch in the bridge explosion (Biggest offense of the whole movie), Leia does her Mary Poppins impression and survives.
Poe gets put in his place by Holdo when he asks for her plan.
Luke's character has severely regressed from his epic stand at the end of Return of the Jedi. He initially refuses to train Rey, but she eventually gets the better of him and he reluctantly offers lessons.
Finn tries to escape, only to meet Rose and get knocked the fuck out.
Rose comes up with a plan to disable the First Order tech that is tracking them.
Poe decides to cause a mutiny, but is later taken down by a revived Leia
Rose's plan is foiled when DJ double crosses them (Crooked man!).
DJ also sells out the Resistance by giving away Holdo's plan (Double crooked!)
Rey leaves Luke in the dust when he refuses to help, taking the Jedi texts to forge her own path.
Rey seems more in control than Kylo during their Force linked scenes
Rey is strong and defiant before Snoke, while Kylo cowers (He does end up killing Snoke though).
Rey gets the better of Kylo and runs away with the broken lightsaber.
Holdo makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the escaping Resistance. (Should have been Ackbar!)
Rose saves Finn from sacrificing himself for the Resistance.
Rey single handily saves the Resistance (Although this did happen thanks to a distraction from Luke).

I'm probably forgetting a few others, but those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head. There was one encounter where the male counterpart got the upper hand over one of the females, when Finn came out on top in his fight with Phasma. On the other hand, I think she only lost because the ship broke up and she fell into the fire....so....yeah. I'm not sexist or anything, but there certainly were some strong feminist overtones that skewed the movie a certain way. None of the previous Star Wars movies were that way. Leia was always a strong female, and you get the sense in New Hope that she didn't really need Han or Luke to help her rescue herself once the cell door was opened. She remained a strong character through Empire and RotJ, never giving an inch to the male leads and yet they were strong in their own right. For the most part the same goes for Rey in Force Awakens, she was a very strong character that took nothing away from the other leads. The same can't be said for Last Jedi. Throughout the movie Rey, Holdo, Rose, and Leia all are clearly superior to the male counterparts in both power and intellect, and other then when DJ sells out the Resistance and blows up both Rose and Holdo's plans, the men get very little redemption or appear strong in their own right. I'm not going to classify Snoke as a male because we don't know what the fuck he is, but he certainly would fall under the crooked asshole tag anyway. Luke's heroics at the end redeem his previous actions, only to die.

So lessons from TLJ: Women are strong. Men are weak, cowardly, or evil/crooked. The only good strong man is a dead man.
 
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Domina Nostra

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So lessons from TLJ: Women are strong. Men are weak, cowardly, or evil/crooked. The only good strong man is a dead man.

The worst to me from the story telling perspective was Holdo’s sacrifice for the team being brave and selfless, but Finn’s attempt to do the exact same thing was rebuked as foolhardy by Rose.

Anyway, my crticism of all that is that it was so ham-fisted and over-the-top that it distracts from the story, not that strong women are bad.

But somehow it’s the seen as the height of enlightened sophistication for some people to ...

1) first pretend it isn’t there, while accusing you of chauvinism—a favorite pastime—as if this isn’t exactly the kind of thing Rian Johnson would think is soooo clever, then...

2) second, once it becomes indefensible, abruptly change tactics and say, “well, if one movie reverses the script and has strong women for once, I think we can all live with it”— as if that (a) is what anyone is complaining about (rather than the stupidity of the execution), and (b) actually something new, rather than an EXTREMELY common theme in modern movies that we are all VERY used to and NOT creative or original at this point on any level.

Feminism does not drive me crazy. But the self-congratulatory posturing of people who confuse political agendas with good story telling (“this is the SW movie we needed”) does. People criticize explicitly Christian movies all the time on the exact same lines.
 
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wizards8507

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The worst to me from the story telling perspective was Holdo’s sacrifice for the team being brave and selfless, but Finn’s attempt to do the exact same thing was rebuked as foolhardy by Rose.
Yes. Rose ruined Finn's hero moment. Rose is ass.
 

ulukinatme

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The worst to me from the story telling perspective was Holdo’s sacrifice for the team being brave and selfless, but Finn’s attempt to do the exact same thing was rebuked as foolhardy by Rose.

Anyway, my crticism of all that is that it was so ham-fisted and over-the-top that it distracts from the story, not that strong women are bad.

Certainly, strong women aren't bad at all, but there's no need to drag the men down in the process. Leia was always a strong female. Padme was a strong female. Although she doesn't have a lot of screen time, Mon Mothma was a strong female. Heck, even if you go further off screen and look at characters like Aayla Secura and Luminara Unduli there are strong women. Star Wars has never been about the "damsel in distress" trope. As I mentioned before, even when Leia was captured you always got the sense that she could rescue herself once the door was open. She was defiant before Tarkin and Vader despite their positions and power, just as Rey was before Snoke.

Point is, there was no reason to drag the good male leads in the Star Wars universe. Women have always been strong in a galaxy far, far away, and yet they never needed to pull the men down before. Having rewatched the movie I can see where the confusion came from the fans. It's certainly a very different kind of movie that doesn't fit with the previous narratives. It has a completely different tone, it just feels unbalanced.
 

Whiskeyjack

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ACamp1900

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Most ridiculous part of this is that the History Channel isn't showing Pawn Stars.

How all these shows are available in all these different formats but History's Mysteries just completely vanished from existence still bothers me. I loved that show.
 

greyhammer90

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Spoiler thread bump. Mandalorian go.

My wife informed me that we have free Disney plus due to our Verizon plan, so apparently I'm coming along for the ride on this.

Long story short: is good start. Very much like that he never took off his helmet. I don't expect them to maintain this, but I wish they would. Helmet acting = best acting. Also the mandalorian helmet design > everything. Pretty much my only complaint is that he was carbon freezing everyone at the beginning. Felt very fan servicey since that method of prisoner transport was never meant to be common use or particularly safe. The armor making scene was A+, because I'm a sucker for culture lore moments.

Why did he insist on not having that R2 unit pilot his speeder in the beginning? I assumed it was a deep distaste/mistrust for droids, but he seemed to have no problem temporarily teaming up with that IG unit and counting on him to do his job.
 

gkIrish

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A few random thoughts...


Thought it was a good start. I am very curious where it goes from here because the way it was presented didn't make the other characters seem all that important.

Nolte's character just seems like he wants to stay on his planet so how are they going to keep him involved going forward?

Is every episode going to focus on a different bounty with a sprinkling of stuff related to the bigger picture?

I was kind of expecting the bounty droid to become his permanent sidekick.

This has a lot of potential because it takes place between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. I don't think we have any on-screen material from that period, right?
 

greyhammer90

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Is every episode going to focus on a different bounty with a sprinkling of stuff related to the bigger picture?

I doubt this will happen but I hope it does. An anthology or short story series surrounding a traveling Mandalorian would be right in the wheelhouse of my own personal tastes. I'd like for it to be paced like Firefly if possible, where there is a big overarching story, but 80% of episodes don't really deal with it and are more self-contained stories.
 

IrishLion

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It's only been two episodes, but it appears we might get a true 'episodic' story. I like it so far.

The armor scene was awesome, and seemed very RPG-ish to me:

Go fetch several bounties, and you will be rewarded with an ingot of Beskar steel. Bring the Beskar steel to the Priestess of the Forge, and she will reward you with MANDALORIAN PAULDRON.

Collect more bounties to get more steel and complete your armor set!

I also liked the negotiation scene with the Jawas. Short, but funny.
 

greyhammer90

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It's very good thus far. I'm not sure how much money Disney has in this but the show looks super expensive. I think it just shows how much better/ easier CGI for artificial stuff is than living breathing things. His ship looks better than GOT stuff did by a mile, but I think a dragon is just a lot harder to do.
 

greyhammer90

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Also I'm digging the fun direction. Showing the bounty hunters setting up to ambush him by having their shadows on the walls and the reflection on his helmet really amped up an otherwise forgettable scene.
 

IrishLion

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It's very good thus far. I'm not sure how much money Disney has in this but the show looks super expensive. I think it just shows how much better/ easier CGI for artificial stuff is than living breathing things. His ship looks better than GOT stuff did by a mile, but I think a dragon is just a lot harder to do.

I read that they average $15M/episode, so they're spending some cash, but demand for the show seems to be paying off.

They expect the audience to keep growing both as they release more episodes and generate more interest, and also because Disney+ will obviously keep growing.
 

IrishLion

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Also I'm digging the fun direction. Showing the bounty hunters setting up to ambush him by having their shadows on the walls and the reflection on his helmet really amped up an otherwise forgettable scene.

That was a cool touch.

My one worry with the show is that it's going to boil down to "continuously concerned about Baby Yoda's safety and well being during whatever shenanigans the Mandalorian is up to now," which is an okay tool to use a bit, but will become exhausting at some point.

Like, not only do we have to worry about the floating crib staying out of the way during fights, and Baby Yoda not getting kidnapped or killed by other bounty hunters, but now we also have to worry about Baby Yoda over-burdening itself with Force-exhaustion.

I'm hoping different directors for each episode will help make it a non-issue.
 

calvegas04

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Was disappointed with the short run time of the last episode being only 27 min. Hoping the remaining episodes are 45-55 min long
 

NDdomer2

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Was disappointed with the short run time of the last episode being only 27 min. Hoping the remaining episodes are 45-55 min long

is this because the previous episode was only like 3 days earlier?

I'm thinking now they they will be more evenly spaced out we will get a longer episode.
 

calvegas04

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is this because the previous episode was only like 3 days earlier?

I'm thinking now they they will be more evenly spaced out we will get a longer episode.

Not sure why that would matter as the season is only 8 episodes
 

gkIrish

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I like baby Yoda just because my fiancee will actually watch the show with me because she thinks it is cute.
 
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